management

How Do You Fight the Status Quo When Leading a New Company?

It’s an exciting time to walk into a new job at a new company and know that you get to set the tone for that company’s vision and performance. If it’s a brand new company and you’re an energetic leader, you’re starting with a clean slate, so you get to create the culture. But if

I recently had a chance to ask some of my old friends and reps to contribute a guest article to my blog. “What do you want us to write about?” they asked. “How about something you’ve learned in our years working together?” I said. This one was written by Bob Blair, an industrial engineer I

Managers, not HR, Should Spend Time Doing Talent Recruiting

When it comes to finding new talent, the onus shouldn’t be on Human Resources to do all the work. HR can find potential talent by ticking off all the boxes, but it’s ultimately the manager who should be responsible for testing the individual skill sets and determining whether they would be a cultural and talent

The Time There Was Nearly a Knife Fight on My Factory Floor

You run into all kinds of problems when you’re managing a factory and running a business. I’ve had to fire people for sleeping on the job. I locked my own son out of a meeting for being late. And I once had to talk a naked guy down out of the rafters. So it shouldn’t

Leaders Shouldn’t Have to Motivate Others

I recently read an article on LinkedIn about how leaders shouldn’t have to motivate others, and I had a bit of an “amen!” response. To me, motivating someone means applying some kind of pressure to get someone to do something they might not otherwise do. As author Maurice Evans said: Motivation has to do with

How I Handled Interpersonal Conflict Between Employees

It’s inevitable that you’re just not going to like someone at work. They’ll rub you the wrong way, get under your skin, and generally irritate you with everything they say and do. Don’t worry, they feel the same way about you too. But even if this is the case, I never wanted — or allowed

The Secret to Managing Discipline in a Large Business Setting

Managing discipline in a large company starts with the hiring process. I’ve always believed in hiring slow and firing fast. But I also had a rule that nobody could be fired without my permission. What that meant was any issue that looked like it could end in termination would elevate to me so a manager

How Much Influence Should Employers Have In Employees’ Personal Lives?

There are all kinds of stories about social media misbehavior. In the early days of social media, there were plenty of stories about people who would complain about their jobs or their supervisors on Facebook and Twitter only to be fired once the company found out about it. Even today, there are stories of people

Four Strategies for Reducing Workplace Injuries

When you run a manufacturing facility, one of your biggest concerns could/should/will always be workplace injury. Manufacturing, with all of its moving parts and massive machines, are a risky place to work. And you can talk about safety all you want, but that doesn’t mean your workers will necessarily be safer. When I was at

How to Avoid Business Debt

Business debt is the one killer to a company’s bottom line, and you need to avoid it whenever possible. If you’re not careful, you can get in over your head and spend most of your profits trying to dig out from it. Whenever I had a position of leadership in any organization, I always brought